Is this the season for infectious diseases in children?

[cupcakes]

Apologies in advance if this seems like scaremongering!
I seem to recall being told that this time of year was ripe for things like chickenpox - and again in the summer at some point. What is the reason for this? Shouldn't the cold kill off bugs?
Have also seen adverts on tv giving the warning signs for meningitis - is this for a similar reason?
Was a little bit worried this pm as my ds got sent home from school for the first time today with a headache - it is very unlike him to suffer from one. Went to bed for 2½ hours and had a good sleep despite waking up and crying because of the pain. Seems a lot better now though and doesn't have any other meningitis symptons (temp, rash, neck stiffness or light sensitivity).
Just got me thinking about why are these things supposed to be more prevalent now?

I think the reason (or one of them) that infectious conditions are more common in winter is that people spend more time indoors when it?s cold. Heating on, windows closed etc, excellent for germs to breed. You end up with people spending more time in close proximity to other people inside a room as opposed to being outdoors and spread out more in the nicer weather.

well can only add that my poor wee baby ds spent his first new year with chicken pox.....bless him, took dd back to school today and quite a few of the younger children or younger siblings have had it!!

My ds has been exposed to chickenpox twice but has never caught it (unless he had a very mild case). I really want him and dd to get it out of the way! Maybe now that he is at school.

My dd1 (3 yrs) had chickenpox over Xmas and now ds (6 month old) has it and I have never had such bad nights as the last 2 with ds crying, I presume with being so itchy . Someone on June thread said their dd only had 3 spots when they got it so it could be that you didn't even notice that he'd had it? It is incredibly contagious.

He and dd both had a couple of small spots and were a bit under the weather but that is all. It could be that we've been very lucky or it might be that their cases were too mild to actually build any form of protection and they will get it again. Although I obviously do not want them to suffer with it I would like to know if they are immune or not!

I would have thought that if your children had even only a couple of spots after being exposed to chickenpox, you can assume that they have had it. Chickenpox really can come down to as few spots as you describe.

My DS1 caught chicken pox when he was 3 weeks old (and that was his first New Year as well!) from my DD1.

Although DD1 was absolutely covered, DS1 got 4 spots on his chest. GP said it was so mild that he may get it again. However, at 18 months he had shingles, so I guess he did have enough of the chicken pox virus in him for him to get shingles later on.

cupcakes when I was a child it did seem that we all got ill during the winter with the childhood diseases. However I have noticed that things like chickenpox occur at all times of the year now, eg my dd got it last June.